


your heart is there, it's in your hands

by aceofdiamonds



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Other, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4258683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an au where robb lives and he, jon and sansa all make it back to winterfell. between the three of them they rebuild the starks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your heart is there, it's in your hands

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve read the first three books and i’ve been kinda keeping up with the show without actually watching it so most of my information has been taken from wiki pages and the rest i’ve twisted to fit my wants. it veers off from the red wedding which robb survives and picks up where the boltons haven’t occupied winterfell but instead ramsey left it to burn and rot. also jon heads back to winterfell after ygritte’s death. i’m not sure if i’ve been able to pick up the right language for some things, the only other thing i’ve written for this fandom is a modern au which is much easier style wise, so i’m sorry if some things are a bit off in terms of accuracy. title is from various storms and saints by florence + the machine

 

 

Robb is the first to come back to the place where they grew up. Where his family stood the last time they were whole. He can’t go anywhere apart from his old chambers for a while, looking at everything with fresh eyes when he thinks about his family now, that they’ll never all be here together again. He takes a day and then another and another to let himself grieve because he’s not needed in a war anymore, that war is over and he thinks he’s never been so glad about anything. Later, he’ll be proven wrong about this, when it turns out his family isn’t as broken as he first thought, but for just now, the war is over and he has all the time he needs to mourn his mother and father and siblings.

Following the gentle prompting of the men who have been with him through everything, the men he considers almost an extension of his arms, his body, after all this time, Robb starts organising the rebuilding of the home his childhood friend tore apart. He makes plans to salvage what he can, avoiding tearing down anything that holds memories for him, but then again, everything in this place holds everything for him. He talks with a builder about the room where he watched Arya take her first steps and discusses changes to the solar where his mother would do her sewing, breaking his fast in the place Sansa told them she would be queen of Westeros one day. He relives everything over and over again, clinging to the promise that time will heal his wounds.

“How do you do it?” he asks a passing servant. There are so few of them now, too. He wants to get to know them all much better than he ever did before. He's their leader now; he needs to know their names, their losses, why they came back to him when he lost them all so much.

She startles, turns to face him. “Your Grace?”

“I can’t forget what happened,” and she understands now, her face softening.

“You’re not supposed to forget,” she says gently. “You’re supposed to remember, Your Grace. That way you keep them alive within these walls.”

Remembering keeps him up at night, pacing the corridors until dawn when he drags himself out to oversee the reconstruction. He tries.

 

.

 

Most of the chambers and the inner corridors have been restored to their previous state by the time Jon makes it to Winterfell. Jon who had joined the Watch before he really knew what that meant and had stuck around to protect those he cared about.

Robb greets him with a nod and a handshake, following him back to his room and pulling him close, the first contact with family in he doesn’t know how long. Jon huffs a laugh against his cheek but holds on just as tight, both of them letting go of any responsibilities they have for the moment.

“It’s good to see you, King in the North,” Jon says when they part, a smile tugging at his lips.

“You’re my brother, Jon,” Robb replies, clapping a hand to Jon’s shoulder. “It’s always Robb to you.”

“I’ll remember that.”

  
  


.

  


Jon tells him about a wildling he loved and lost and Robb confesses that he also broke a vow, one that led to the death of his wife, his mother, and his unborn child. Jon bows his head in sympathy and together they sit there, in their broken world, with only each other.

 

.

  


When Robb thinks of Jeyne he remembers the steadiness of her hands when she had tended to his wrist, the softness of her cheek when she had rested it against his own, how easy and how right it had felt to be with her if only for such a brutally short time.

He vomits into the basin that sits in his solar when the pain and regret of what he has done truly hits him. Leaving his lady mother and his wife behind when he had made his escape had been cowardly and stupid and becoming the King of his people seems a worthless outcome.

With Stannis Baratheon on the Iron Throne Robb knows he has cut a better deal than had any other of the contenders made it to King’s Landing before him. By bending the knee Robb had been allowed to continue the separation of the North and the South with the promise to refer to the King on the Iron Throne should the occasion call for it. It’s far more than Joffrey or Tommen would have allowed, leagues away from even the late King Robert’s wishes, despite being such close friends with Robb’s late father. It's not the ending they had been fighting for but it's close.

 

.

  


They hear rumours concerning Sansa and the Vale and even though neither of them let themselves consider the possibility that she's safe and well and returning home they make sure her old chambers are ready for her return, keeping a supply of fresh flowers sitting in front of her looking glass. 

When they get a raven carrying the confirmation in her handwriting they wait and wait until a serving girl knocks on the door and says through a breath that the Lady Sansa is back and wants to see them. 

 

.

 

Sansa is pale and drawn, her hands shaking when she folds over the sleeves of her dress, but when she raises her head she meets Robb’s gaze, her eyes are sharp and stronger than Robb’s ever seen her. She allows a smile to spread along her mouth, slow and cautious, and when he strides across the ground to meet her she all but falls into his arms, a breath falling from her that sounds so much like the relief Robb has inside of him.

“I’ve missed you so much, Robb,” she murmurs into his neck, and it’s almost like no time has passed at all, Robb’s instinct to protect her against the world fierce in his chest. But he failed in that task, she has been through so much, so much he doesn’t know about, was powerless to stop, and she’s still trusting him, the same as before.

“Sansa,” is all he can say in return, pulling her closer against him. It’s cold, winter is still with them, but he doesn’t consider moving.

“Where’s Jon?” she asks eventually. She lifts her head to look for him, warmth replacing the steel in her eyes.

"It's good to see you, Sansa," Jon says from behind them, and then Sansa is out of Robb's arms and into Jon's. It's hard not to laugh at the surprise on his face, the careful way his arms fold around her, but the way she clings to him is sobering. The three of them are all that is left of the Starks of Winterfell.

 

.

  
  


"I can't imagine what it must have been like when you first arrived, Robb," Sansa says, walking slowly into the main hall. "To do this by yourself..." she stops, staring up at the dire wolf sigil on the far wall, her hand finding Grey Wind by her side. "You've done so well."

“I didn’t think I could do it,” he admits. “But I think this is what they would have wanted.”

He wants to ask about Father, if what they were saying about treason was true because he cannot believe it, and he needs to talk about their Lady Mother. He needs to tell Sansa that he tried to save her but that Frey was too strong, had too many, and it was only by luck and desperation that Robb made it out of there at all. He needs to tell her that sometimes he wishes he hadn’t and that now he would be in the next life with Mother and Father and Bran and Rickon and Jeyne. Perhaps she feels that way too.

“Are we supposed to continue to be this strong?” Sansa asks.

“We have to. For our people.”

“I don’t know if I can, Robb. When I shut my eyes all I can see is Littlefinger and Father and that awful Red Keep and I wake up and I can’t breathe.”

Robb holds her close against him, fists curled tight by her waist because if he lets go of her now he'll flee the castle and search for Littlefinger until there's nothing left of him. But that's not what he can do, not when the conflicts are over and this is peace time, so instead he sways with Sansa in his arms, and hopes this can be enough.

 

.

  
  


Sansa doesn't cry for a long time. It is only when Jon mentions Arya, that he hopes she is somewhere out there still, that she finally breaks, sobs bursting from her again and again, so strong they make her shudder and fall against Robb. His arm fits around her, comforting the way he always has been, and then there's the weight of another hand, this one slightly more tentative as it smoothes over her hair. They soothe her with whispers, their deep voices mingling on the way to her ears where she's still pressed between them. 

 

.

  
  


One morning as Robb is conducting an inspection of the outer areas of the castle, making sure they are being rebuilt to the standard of the original, Sansa crashes into him.

"Sansa, what's wrong?" 

“How could Theon do this, Robb?” Sansa sobs, her fists banging against Robb’s chest. He backs against the wall of the stables, bringing her with him, and allows her to continue her assault, because he has no answer, nothing but the need to vomit every time he thinks about Theon commandeering the house he grew up in and burning his brothers like they were nothing. “I miss them more every day,” she whispers, her forehead falling to his shoulder, her body trembling beneath his fingers. “I thought Theon was -- Theon _couldn’t_ have done this.”

And Robb wishes more than anything that this was true. He can’t get the moment the raven came out of his head -- his mother had fallen to the ground, hands clutching the air around her, and she hadn’t spoken for three days, not even when the Lannisters had advanced further up their ground and action needed to be taken. Before Robb had left to re-enter the battlefield she had held Robb against her chest, her nails sharp where they scraped on his skin, and hadn’t let him go until someone dragged him away, the fear of another son lost in this war making her desperate and stricken.

But all of this is true. It happened, because of Theon, the boy Robb loved like a brother.

They don’t know where Theon is now, no one has heard of him since he disappeared in the smoke of Ramsay Snow, the Bolton bastard, not long before Robb returned to Winterfell, and Robb doesn’t know if that brings him relief or not because he doesn’t know what he would have to do should someone bring Theon to him and demand a justice Robb is seeking too.

“I miss them, too,” he says instead, when Sansa continues to cry. And then he bows his head, laying his head on Sansa’s shoulder, and does that the woman told him to when he asked how to cope -- he remembers.

  


.

  


Robb sees it as a way of comfort at first, a kiss to make her warm, to help her feel loved. He kisses her gently, all too aware of the things she has gone through, the things she’s still not telling him because she can’t think about them for too long without ordering Baelish’s head on a stick. He would do it for her. He would leave the safe haven of Winterfell and hunt down that foul beast and tear him limb for limb, presenting his remains to his sister with an apology that he couldn’t do it sooner. But Sansa pleads with him, tells him she can’t bear to be parted from him again, let’s stay here, he can’t get us here. When Jon offers to go in Robb’s place Sansa’s answer is the same, tears welling in her eyes as she thanks them. Her hands fumble for both of theirs and they stand, huddled in an alcove on the third floor, for a long time.

Because Sansa won’t allow him to take revenge he sees this as the next thing. He feels it cut deep in his chest the first time he presses his lips to hers, startled when it’s not shame he feels but an understanding of why the Lannisters did this, nothing more welcome than the feel of his sister pressed against his chest, her tongue hesitant when it touches his. He leans into the dizziness of his head, that swell in his chest when all types of love collide, and kisses her deeply.

"Robb," she breathes when they pull apart.

"I apologise, Sansa. I don't know what I was thinking." His breathing is as tagged as hers. Evidence of their mistake.

"No, don't say that." She bends her head over her lap, her hands twisting and twisting. "Robb, is it wrong to say I liked it? That I want more?"

It should be. Robb should be sorry for wanting it too but right here, in this old castle that is but a shell of their home, he wants to cling to anything that makes him feel something. He’s been numb for so long. "It should be but it's not," he says, heart beating so fast in his chest.

"The Lannisters --"

"No," Robb says quickly, his hand coming up to her chin, the corner of her lips. "Don't compare us to them. That wasn't love, Sansa. That was evil. Pure evil."

“Kiss me again,” she whispers, and he does, gods he does.

 

.

 

Robb feels like a child. He’s late to meals and he is distracted during meetings. His thoughts are full of Sansa and how she’s mending the hole inside him with her kisses and touches full of everything they’re missing. There are no wars to fight, no battles to be won, but there are so many depending on him that he can’t afford to be inattentive.

"Your Grace," a bannerman says, pulling Robb out of the memory of Sansa's hair in his hands, how vibrant and red and so soft it feels when he's pushing into her, his hands searching to touch every part of her. "Your Grace," he says again.

"Sorry, I was --" and they look at him with sympathy and they forgive because he lost everything to save Winterfell. "Yes?"

"The cattle, Your Grace."

"Yes, of course." He shakes his head to clear it then bends over the reams of parchment detailing the fall in cattle over the last six moons. Moments later he is again distracted by the flash of Sansa’s dress as she walks past the hall on a walk with Jeyne.

_“Your Grace.”_

He makes grand promises that their stock will be back to how it should be by the turn of the next moon now that the grain production is getting back to its feet which appease his people and then he takes bannermen to the side with requests to scour the surrounding lands for any extra hands available, any extra food. They might be building themselves back up from the ground but they have still got a long way to go if they wish to be half the land his Lord Father ruled.

No more distractions.

  
  


.

  
  


"I think Jon knows something," Sansa murmurs when the two of them are lying in her bedchambers, her body still tingling from the way Robb had kissed every part of her, made her feel like something worthy of the King in the North. 

"Should we tell him?" But how do you phrase something like this -- that you want to do things to your sister that you should never think of. That you love her in a way that is wrong, evidence seen in the whispers surrounding the Lannisters. They're not like the Lannisters, no, he’s said that enough times, but now that he’s loving his sister this way, the way Jaime and Cersei did he can see their side of things, and that perhaps in this regard they are far more similar to the remaining Lannisters than either of them would ever wish. He suspects Cersei and Jaime never saw what they were doing as evil but as how Robb does, as necessary, as love. "We don't know how he would react."

"It would take some getting used to," she says, leaning her head on his bare shoulder. He loves her hair, the feel of it running through his fingers enough to calm him after an argument with his bannermen. It calms her, too, he can tell by the way her shoulders roll and shift into him, the soft sigh she makes when his fingers press at the roots.

"The two remaining Starks living in sin."

"Jon's a Stark, too."

"Not by name," and Robb hates this stupid way of living where fathers and family names are so important but despite his offers Jon has so far declined to be legitimized. He's always been so proud; a trait Robb knows can be just as fatally a flaw as a blessing.

"He's a Stark to me," Sansa says with a firmness Robb doesn't hear much anymore. 

"That's not what you used to think." He remembers the way Sansa would copy their mother, calling Jon bastard and half-brother as soon as she could differentiate him from the rest of them. Now she's staring out of the window with something lost on her face. 

"There's hardly any of us left anymore. We need to hold on to what we have." 

"When we were young --" Robb starts but he is cut off by Sansa, her look succeeding even before she says, "A lot has changed since we were young." 

She tilts her head to kiss him then as though making a point. As his tongue delves into her mouth, tasting lemon cakes and wine from supper, he is struck with the arousing thought that he wants to know what she tasted like before everything changed. 

"We'll tell him soon," she murmurs into his mouth as he pulls on his undergarments for the journey back to his room. "We can trust him."

  
  


.

  
  


They tell him in the godswood, just as the sun is reaching its highest. Robb watches a shadow fall through the trees across Sansa's face as she picks amongst the words that describe what they are.

"Robb and I -- it was unexpected, you understand," she says, and Jon only stares, impassive. "It started as a comfort and then it grew and oh, Jon, it feels almost like I can breathe again. Please don't tell anyone, will you? You know what they'll say. They'll spoil it and --"

Robb touches her arm gently. "Jon, we would understand if you can't bear it but Sansa's right, it has helped to cope, and that may be wrong --

"Can I try?" Jon's voice is gruff, unsure.

"Try?"

"May I kiss you, Sansa?"

Sansa glances at Robb. He nods. If she wishes that then who is he to deny her. What they're doing here is sinful, they all know that, who are they to make up rules within.

Sansa steps close into Jon, her fingers resting lightly on his shirt. She tilts her head up as he leans down and then their mouths bump together lightly, a child’s kiss.

Jon pulls away almost instantly, his back hitting the trunk of the tree they're hiding under. He blinks. "Allow me to apologise, Sansa."

"You're just as bad as Robb," Sansa huffs. "A lady does not appreciate being apologised to for a kiss. At least, not when she has enjoyed it."

"You did?"

"I might have, had you stayed longer. Jon, you need to pour your emotion into it, you need to show me how much you want it. Robb, is it fine if Jon kisses me again?"

Robb nods and then Jon is cupping Sansa’s face, kissing her softly, and Sansa is kissing him back, her hand at his cheek. It’s not jealousy Robb is feeling but want. He watches the way their mouths meet, the laugh that is caught in the middle, and he needs to be a part of it.

He takes a step closer. Sansa and Jon break apart.

“Well,” Sansa says, flushing. “That was quite -- that was --”

“Sansa,” Robb interrupts. He meets her gaze, both of them agreeing that this could work, why don’t they try it? They’re already living in sin. This is what they need -- the tightest of unions, of family. For the Starks. He turns to Jon who is watching them with questions and answers all over his face. “Jon,” Robb says, hoping he sounds like a brother and not a King. He finds it hard to differentiate some days. “Would you...?” He trails off, lets his sister and his brother finish the sentence for themselves.

“I would,” Jon says, ducking his head as a blush rises on his cheeks. “I would like that very much."

Sansa laughs, the sound bubbling into something close to a sob. When Robb and Jon look at her with alarm she waves them off, producing a smile. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice still shaky. “I feel so happy and yet I feel guilty for being so when Arya and Bran and oh, little Rickon...” She holds a hand pressed to her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks as she shakes.

Robb steps in close beside her to gently brush the tears away. It’s an intimate gesture, one that Jon is witnessing from by his side, but after a second he too reaches a hand to Sansa’s shoulder, his comfort clear in the steadiness of his arm.

  
  


.

  
  


Winterfell grows around them. There are no longer holes in the walls, no more cold draughts blowing in through gaps where gaps should not be. The numbers of people living with them is increasing, too, and when Robb brings it up with Sansa she says she can’t let people go hungry when there are so many jobs here with shelter and food included. On top of this Sansa starts baking. She gets in the cooks’ way during meal times but when there’s a lull in the middle of the afternoon Sansa smiles at the head cook and surrounds herself with flour and sugar, experimenting with biscuits so sweet they make Robb and Jon mumble and avoid her eyes, laughing shamefully when she pouts and throws the crumbs in their hair. Jon takes up the training of the younger boys because the war may be over, Stannis may be secure on the Throne, but they can’t let their guard slip for a second.

So Sansa bakes and Jon trains and Robb tries to keep on top of everything else. He deals with problems in the village and the ongoing repairments and he tries to hold on to the fact that the war is over, he's King in the North, and he has the two people he loves most in the world beside him.

 

.

  


Robb kisses Jon for the first time in Sansa's solar as she's getting ready for bed. Before now they've manouvered themselves through Sansa, always kissing and touching her rather than the other, but now Robb reaches out and takes hold of Jon's shirt, pulls him in and kisses him. It's not so different, he thinks. There's the scratch of Jon's beard on his chin and his cheek and the taste of his mouth is not as sweet as Sansa's but Robb realises he needs this too.

"Are you beginning without me?" Sansa asks from the doorway. Robb draws back from Jon, watching Sansa slowly walk across the room to the bed, his tongue licking over his bottom lip when he narrows in on the gape of her robe.

Beside him, close enough for Robb to feel it where their bodies are still touching, Jon shudders, sucking in a breath that rattles in his chest. When Sansa’s robe drops off one shoulder revealing pale freckled skin Robb understands Jon’s distress.

“We were waiting for you,” Robb says, “but you were taking too long.”

“I do apologise," she laughs, the sound a happy surprise. It's then that Robb looks past their sin and truly admits that Sansa has been right all this time. This is good for them. "Please continue."

When Robb glances back at Jon he catches the flush that is growing on his neck all the way down to his chest. The idea of being a show for Sansa, for themselves, is another unforeseen but enjoyable aspect of this whole thing. So he smiles at Sansa, quick, and then turns around and kisses Jon again.

He hears Sansa move onto the bed behind him, her body small and soft when she presses up against his back. When he feels her lips on his shoulder as Jon's tongue is in his mouth, he falls, lost, caught between Sansa and Jon. She bites at his skin lightly, her hands sweeping down his sides, and then she laughs again, the second time as freeing as the first, when Robb groans and fumbles for both of their hands, holding tight.

“Jon,” she whispers, reaching past Robb to curl her hand in Jon’s hair. “Can I kiss you now?”

Jon pulls away from Robb, eyes dark, and nods. “Of course, my lady,” and then he kisses her, right by Robb’s head, keeping him there in the middle of them, making sure, as he always does, that all three of them are involved, there together.

“I think we’re getting there,” Sansa says afterwards when she’s the one in the middle, their bodies overlapping in every which way. Robb's belly is sticky with Jon's seed, the sheet damp beneath him from his own. They’ll have to move soon otherwise Sansa’s ladies will find them and people will talk, but Robb lies there for a few minutes longer, revelling in the evening out of his breathing and the way his heart is bursting from his chest through joy and not fear.

“Getting where, Sansa?” Jon asks, the sound muffled from where his mouth is burrowed in Sansa’s neck. Robb has noticed the way Jon is always drawn to Sansa’s hair and her scent, his nose always searching for what Robb assumes is something reminiscent of his wildling with hair brighter than even Sansa’s. While Jon focuses on her neck and chest Robb prefers to settle between her legs, tasting the very centre of her and making her squirm and gasp with delight and pleasure. He wets his lips, tasting her, and wishes they had enough time to repeat it all again.

“To something like happiness.”

Robb doesn’t know if it will ever be possible to feel whole, not with half their family missing or dead and with the castle a ghost of what it once was, but Sansa is right. None of them are as empty as before. Not quite.

 

.

  


Sansa’s name day comes around as the cattle are growing in number and plants are beginning to bloom out of the burned earth by the gates. The Sansa Robb knew before would have wanted the biggest feast imaginable with fools and musicians to entertain her every whim. Their father was always soft with Sansa and Arya -- if Sansa had wanted a thousand guests she would have been given them, or if she had wanted the servants to talk in verse all night he would have spoken nicely to them and persuaded them to do as she asked, no matter how bad some of them were at it. It used to annoy Robb when their father would act this way, it always seemed unfair, but now he would give Sansa everything the way their father did, if it made her do that smile that she lets Robb and Jon see most nights, the one where her teeth show and her eyes recover that shine that has been missing for a long time.

He would have bent at the knee to get everything they didn’t have from King Stannis on the Throne and then he would have seated Sansa in Robb’s throne and ordered everyone to sing her praises. Not that they would have needed that order -- the people of Winterfell adore Lady Sansa, quiet and sombre as she may be.

He would have done all this for her but she doesn’t want it.

“It already feels too much that I have made it to another name-day,” she says as the three of them walk around the godswood. “I never knew if either of you were alive for my last one. It’s enough that the three of us are together.

“Does that mean you don’t want presents?” Jon asks, his smile teasing.

Sansa takes his arm, looking up at him with an expression Robb never expected to see between his sister and his half-brother, not after the childhood of quarrels. “No, you know that’s not true, Jon.”

“I don’t know what to get girls who are turning six-and-ten,” Robb says, making his voice higher into a babe’s whine.

She glances around for someone who might see them and then leans in and kisses him quickly, her hand back on Jon’s arm before Robb can blink. “Anything will be perfect,” she says.

 

.

  
  


Robb and Jon put their heads together and bake Sansa a cake. The head cook leaves them the ingredients, saying how sweet it is that the two brothers are making Lady Sansa a thoughtful gift. The wrongly-placed compliment makes Robb’s belly stir uneasily because the rest of Winterfell might find out about the three of them soon if they keep being as reckless as they have been and he can’t fall the same way the Lannisters have. Not when he has a Kingdom to protect.

On the morning of Sansa’s name-day Robb and Jon ask Sansa’s maids to leave them for a while, all under the pretence of giving their sister a cake made with family affection and not a love grown from incest. They fall onto the bed on either side of her, legs tangling with hers through the furs.

“Watch the cake,” Jon yelps which wakes Sansa.

“What is this?” she asks, sitting up.

“Happy name day, Sansa,” Jon says, taking the cake from Robb’s hand and presenting it to Sansa whose nose wrinkles at the sight of it.

“It looks...”

“We made it,” Robb adds before she finds an adjective.

“Oh, well, if the King made it then it must be edible,” she says, dipping her finger into the dripping icing and swallowing it around her finger. Her eyes widen in surprise. “I am impressed.”

Jon laughs, delighted, and then he kisses Sansa, finding her hand under the furs and holding it. Robb watches as Sansa leans into the kiss, her tongue finding its way into Jon’s mouth, her hand reaching up to cradle his head. Robb shuffles over until he can brush his lips against her cheek, stroking her hair, wild and free from the night’s sleep.

“This is quite the gift,” Sansa sighs, breaking away from Jon’s kiss to tilt her head back, allowing Robb to kiss her neck, careful not to leave any marks. “Thank you.” She pulls her head back up, her fingers cupping Jon’s chin so they both look at her. “For everything. I never hoped you would be alive, not after everything I’d seen and heard, and to come back to Winterfell and find you here. I love you,” she says, her voice that clear timbre she uses when speaking to the servants. It’s the one she uses when she knows exactly what she wants. “I love you both so much.”

“And I love you,” Jon says gruffly. Robb slides his arm over to Jon’s shoulders, pulling him closer.

When Jeyne had been killed at the Twins Robb had wondered many times if there was any point to go on living. Then he had secured the North and his brother had come back to him, his sister following not long behind, and he had seen that there is more to living than love and war. There is family. And there’s hope.

“I love you, too,” he murmurs, ducking his head to take a kiss from Jon before doing the same with Sansa. The sun is beginning to show through the window; soon maids will be back to get Sansa ready for the day and Jon will have to gather his squires to continue their training. Robb will sit on his throne and tend to the people’s needs, the bend of his lips permissible because it’s his sister’s birthday, the first real day of celebrations since they retook the castle from the Boltons, and the castle is bursting with it.

 

.

 

Despite Sansa’s wishes there is a feast that night. It’s not as grand as the ones the castle once hosted but in this period of recovery and hope it is large enough that the people of Winterfell are whispering about it all day, speculating on who will be attending and what they’ll be wearing. Members of Houses from all across the North travel to pass on their well-wishes and to congratulate Robb on his rebuilding of the castle and the power of the North. Lord of the Last Hearth, Greatjon Umber, bows his head in deep regret when he talks of Robb and Sansa’s mother.

“She was an impressive woman,” he says gruffly, taking Robb’s hand in both of his own. “I should have been there.”

Greatjon departed from the rest of Robb’s bannerman the day before the wedding in order to pass negotiations to Houses further south; he can’t be held accountable for what happened. When Robb tells him so he inhales deeply, his breath rattling in his chest, and says, “You have done them proud, Your Grace. That I can promise you.”

Once he has moved away in search of ale Sansa appears by Robb’s side, her hand sliding onto his arm. “Lord Umber is right,” she murmurs. “Mother and Father would be so proud of you, Robb.”

Robb wants to put his arms around her and bury his face in her hair so he can hide the tears building in his eyes but there are too many people around and tonight Sansa is the centre of the celebrations so he nods stoically and clears his throat, steadying himself. He puts on a brave enough face that it rivals Sansa’s who is sombre but grateful as she toasts those who have made the journey and hopes that these better times may continue.

When they sit down to the meal Robb has Sansa on one side and Jon on the other. A knight from House Glover comments on how awful it must be to lose half their siblings, it must make them appreciate each other even more than before, and Robb, with his foot hooked around Jon’s ankle and his hand clasped with Sansa’s on her thigh, nods and says he couldn’t live without them.

 

.

 

Now that Sansa is six-and-ten people have started murmuring about marriage and alliances. Robb dismisses the first few requests on the grounds that she is still getting used to being back in her home; then he tells them that she is mourning her family and marriage will come after that. It’s selfish of him, perhaps, Sansa is a beautiful woman with strong lineage and a good head for politics, but Robb cannot let anyone else have her in the way he and Jon do. Not right now.

When he broaches the subject with Sansa and Jon they make similar sounds of agreement. “But, Robb,” Sansa says, leaning her head on his shoulder, “I must. Not today, or next week, but one day I must.”

“We can’t let you go again,” Robb argues, because last time Sansa and Arya had rode South with their father only two came back to Winterfell and she has never quite been the same since. “This is your home.”

From over by the window Jon clears his throat. When Robb and Sansa turn to him he suggests, “The chosen husband could come to Winterfell and live for a while. That would give us more time.”

“You can’t want this, Jon,” Robb says, feeling like he is the only one fighting for them.

“Sansa’s right,” he says, walking over to the bed and joining them. Only half an hour ago Jon had fucked Sansa as Robb had kissed her, right here on the bed, the three of them moving as one in the way they have grown to know as familiar and true. It’s not fully dark outside yet; people are still wandering the halls, anyone could overhear them. They’re getting too reckless, too wild, some day someone will stumble upon them and then there will be no bargaining or promises and all will be gone. “Robb,” Jon says quietly. “I hate the thought of it so much I could be sick but this is what a King must do.”

Sansa twists her body to kiss Robb, and when she pulls away she whispers in his ear, loud enough for Jon to hear. “No man will ever replace either of you in my heart. I promise.”

 

.

  
  


A smith almost walks in on Robb and Jon when they sneak away to kiss while Sansa is doing needlework with her ladies; they only avoid a confrontation by talking loudly about swords and examining the one the smith is holding, shamefully using their ranks to bluster their way through their red faces and swollen lips. When they tell Sansa later she scolds them, eyeing Jon when Robb isn’t looking to remind him not to blurt out their similar scare a few days earlier in the kitchens.

What the Starks aren’t aware of, though, is that their relationship, if that is what it is to be called, unconventional as it is, is the worst kept secret throughout Winterfell. There are concerns about heirs and legitimacy between the higher ranking staff but it is by-passed by the faith that what they are doing with one another is what is helping the castle grow and bloom back to its original state before it was torn apart by the war. It is true that incest is a sin, that a King should take part in it is unspeakable, but it is also true that unlike the Lannister twins, Robb and Sansa and Jon take their love and spread it amongst their people, using it to build loyalty and power within their people and with neighbouring Houses. The Old Gods do not permit such a show of love, that is true as well, but who are they to call this evil, when so far all it has brought is good.

“It’s disgusting!” a stable-boy says as the rumours circulate. Many echo his opinion behind closed doors, turning away with a sneer twisting their faces when Jon guides Sansa with a hand on her back, or when King Robb holds his sister’s hand when they pray in the godswood. “What would the Lord and Lady say?” a market-seller gasps, muttering to his neighbours about honour and pride. Catelyn Tully never showed Jon Snow any love and now he is engaged in such activities with her eldest children it is unimaginable how she would react. Eddard, too, a religious and just man to a fault would have reacted with pain and anger at the sight of his eldest daughter taking his son by the hand and pulling him into her solar with a smile not proper from a sister to a brother.

But despite this Winterfell builds its walls around the three remaining Starks, eager to keep them here unharmed, for as long as possible. They pray to their Gods that King Robb will be with them for a long time more with Lady Sansa by his side and Ser Jon by his knee. They give up on the idea of sending their Lady to another House as she continues to heal and talk with everyone she passes. She is kind to the ladies who mend her dresses; when children approach her when she is out walking in the grounds she greets them with a smile and they shuffle their feet and blush, running to tell their mothers about Lady Sansa’s dress and how lovely her voice is when they hear her sing late at night; and when knights pass on their way South she offers each one of them her blessing. There is a fierce strength to her as well, one that impresses Robb and Jon as she points out things neither of them would have thought of. She tells them everything she overheard in King’s Landing when people forgot she was in the room and would spill everything they knew right in front of her and then she turns quieter, pulling out plots she had teased from Littlefinger and then pushed to the back of her mind. Robb directs his men to points of possible conflict following her suggestions, Jon adding in information he’d learned from his times with the Night’s Watch and then with the wildlings.

 

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“Do you really think Arya is out there?” Jon asks Robb and Sansa one night in his chambers.

“I do,” Sansa says, working her fingers through her hair to untangle the knots from riding in the wind earlier that afternoon. She slides back to sit between Robb’s legs at his murmur, allowing him to take over. “I know that she’ll come back to us eventually.”

“Arya’s the fiercest girl I’ve ever met,” Robb says, remembering the kick she had given him once when they were small and playing knights and dragons. He’s confident that she has only improved since then. And that’s without the sword lessons. “If anyone can survive out there she can.”

Sansa’s hand reaches up to join his in her hair, tangling their fingers together. “I miss her. I miss everyone.”  

Because many moons have passed since Robb returned to Winterfell and it’s been almost as many since he kissed Sansa and began this thing with her and Jon and he doesn’t feel so broken anymore but he knows he won’t feel close to whole again with Arya out there somewhere without them.

“We’ll find her,” Jon declares. He kneels beside Sansa on the cold floor, nudging Robb’s knees further apart so he can fit between them. His weight is warm and steady against Robb. “I’ll find her for us, Sansa.”

“I trust you, Jon,” which is everything coming from Sansa now. “I know you’ll find our sister.”

Robb bends his head to kiss her head and then Jon’s. He has his Kingdom, more of it than he expected to hold, he has his people, and he has his brother and his sister. Slowly, surely, Winterfell is beginning to feel like home again.

  



End file.
